


the lines of your heart

by notcaycepollard



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, for stupid fluff, i am not a palm-reader, mention of bisexual Phil Coulson, there's not much plot here, this is just excuses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 13:08:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5249345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcaycepollard/pseuds/notcaycepollard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Coulson gives them the mission briefing, she thinks at first he's kidding.</p><p>He's not kidding.</p><p>"You're serious," she says flatly. "Renfaire. You're serious."</p><p> </p><p>(a thinly-plotted excuse for two things: 1) Daisy in a corset, 2) Skoulson fortune-telling. blame tumblr enablers, okay.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the lines of your heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BrilliantlyHorrid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrilliantlyHorrid/gifts), [RowboatCop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/gifts).



When Coulson gives them the mission briefing, she thinks at first he's kidding.

He's not kidding.

"You're serious," she says flatly. " _Renfaire_. You're serious."

"Hey, I don't control where our missions pop up," Coulson tells her, faintly raises one eyebrow. "We've been tracking this guy around for a while. He's working the local faire this weekend as a blacksmith. It seems like a good time to go in and do some subtle digging."

" _Subtle_ ," Daisy says, because she doesn't miss the way his lips turn up in the tiniest of smirks.

"Oh," Coulson replies. "Yes. It's an undercover mission. Did I not mention that?" 

"You want me to go investigate a  _super-strength blacksmith_ for potential to join Secret Warriors, while I'm dressed as a medieval wench in a corset and a frilly skirt. Come on, Coulson."

"That's about it," he agrees, and oh, the way his eyes are sparkling with suppressed laughter, Daisy's  _missed_ this. It almost makes up for how stupid the mission is.

"Okay," she says. "On one condition."

"Hmm?"

"You're my undercover partner," she tells him. "Since you're so  _great_ at undercover, and all."

"I-" Coulson says, and she grins.

"Go find a pair of tights," she says, pats his shoulder easily as she leaves the room. 

 

+

 

The next morning, she's reconsidering everything, and also thinking a little bit about setting all of Phil Coulson's favorite suits on fire, because she  _cannot_ figure out this corset, and she refuses to be defeated by a piece of clothing. It shouldn't be this hard. She pulls on the thin blouse and long brown skirt, ties it at her waist, and tugs the corset over the top, ineffectually pulls at the strings. It seems deeply uncomfortable.

"Hey, Coulson?" she calls, knocking at the door of his bunk, and hears him clear his throat.

"Just a minute," he says. She shifts her weight, smooths her hand down the front of the corset. It's so... stiff. Why is it so stiff.

Coulson opens the door, and Daisy just blinks for a moment. It's kind of _impressive_ , she thinks, in a very weird way.

"Uh," she says, intelligently, and Coulson coughs again. "Wow," she adds. "That's, uh. Sure something, Director, where'd you  _find_ that?"

"I've owned it for years," he admits as she comes in. "You know I was a history buff at high school. Renfaires weren't so big back then, but they were still around. It wasn't always so tight, though."

"Guess you've got more muscle than you used to have," Daisy jokes, reaches out to touch his pec before she realizes what she's doing and pulls back her hand. "It doesn't look  _bad_ , though. Nice, um, velvet."  _Nice chest_ , she adds privately to herself, because under the green velvet jerkin  _thing_ , Coulson's wearing a loose white shirt, unbuttoned way lower than she's used to seeing, and okay, she can totally see his chest hair, that's a thing that's happening.

"How's your costume working?" he asks, looking suspiciously pink in the cheeks, and she sighs.

"I'm defeated by corsetry," she confesses, "what is this thing even made of."

"Steel-boned," he tells her, frowns down at the way she's tied it. "Okay, you've got it all wrong."

"What's wrong with this?" she asks defiantly, and Coulson smiles a little.

"Well," he says, "for starters, you've got it upside down."

"...Oh," Daisy says. "Okay."

"You need some help?"

She does. She does need some help. She sighs again, undoes the knot and pulls it off, hands it to him, and he starts loosening the lacing with quick fingers.

"You, uh," he mutters, and now he's definitely blushing. "This is an overbust, so for it to fit properly, you're going to have to take off..." Daisy stares at him, uncomprehending, and Coulson reaches out, touches the strap of her bra.

" _Oh_ ," she says again. "I. Okay. I'll just, uh, turn around."

"Here, look, I'll close my eyes," Coulson tells her, and that makes her grin as she wriggles out of her bra, tugs the blouse back into place. The neckline is loose; it keeps slipping off one shoulder. This is a  _really stupid mission_ , Daisy thinks.

"Okay," she tells him, "how do you-" Coulson reaches around her, passes her the corset, and she realizes she can hook it up the front. "Right, this is significantly easier than I was making it," she says, and he laughs softly behind her.

"Can I lace you up?" he asks, and she nods, feels it begin to compress as he tightens the laces from the top and bottom, working toward the middle.

"How'd you even learn this kind of thing, anyway?" she says, feels his fingers skim briefly over her upper back. He's got his new prosthesis on, the one with synthetic skin, and she can't tell except for the vibrations which hand is on her. His touch is light, professional, barely brushing her skin, but it's enough to make her shiver. 

"I was in theater," he says, "in high school. Joined because I totally had a thing for one of the lighting guys, stayed because I loved working behind the scenes. I did just enough with costuming that I can still remember this, just."

"You had a  _thing_ for the lighting guy?" Daisy says, delighted, and Coulson's hands pause briefly before continuing to pull at the laces.

"Yeah," he says, maybe a little wistful, and Daisy smiles at that. "Okay, I'm not aiming for tightlacing here, but it's got to be reasonably tight to fit right. Is that okay?"

"Sure," Daisy agrees, and Coulson puts one hand in the small of her back. 

"Breathe out," he tells her, and when she does, he pulls hard.

"Oof," she says, is caught off-balance by the sudden force, and he catches her easily around the waist, tugs the ribbons again, makes her gasp a little for breath. "Jeez, Coulson, remind me again why we're going in  _undercover_. I know tourists go to these things. We wouldn't have been out of place." _  
_

"Undercover means it'll be easier to blend in," he says reasonably. "Especially if we need to get in behind the scenes."

"Okay," Daisy mutters, because that makes sense. He finishes tightening the laces, reaches in to loop them around her waist, and his breath is briefly hot on the curve of her neck.

"There," he says, tying them in a bow at the back. "You're done."

"Hmmm," she says, turns to face him, tries to rearrange the neckline of her blouse to stop it falling. "Will I do?" Coulson puts his hands on her waist, as if he doesn't know he's doing it, looks down at her oddly.

"Yeah," he says, "yeah, you'll- yeah." She's suddenly aware of the way the corset is pushing up her breasts, making her breathe more shallowly than usual. Is Coulson  _looking_? Surely not. ( _She's_ looking, again, at his chest. It's a gorgeous V of bare skin. She could just lean right in and brush her lips against his throat.)

"I'm keeping my boots on," she tells him, steps away, and she can tell from his vibrations that he takes a deep breath before he follows her out.

 

+

 

The renfaire is hot, and loud, and weirdly anachronistic - Daisy's not sure how many stormtroopers actually existed in the middle ages - but it's also weirdly fun. She'd never admit it to Coulson, but it is. She turns her face to the sun, swings her hips a little more than usual, enjoys the swish of her skirt, and wonders, again, whether Coulson's actually looking. His vibrations feel like he is, but every time she glances over at him, he's as easily professional as usual.

"Any sign of our guy?" Mack asks over comms from the van. He and Lincoln are running back-up, and he sounds bored as hell. He and Lincoln don't exactly get on, and Daisy feels a bit bad about that, except that it turns out she and Lincoln aren't exactly getting on these days either.

"I've got nothing," she tells him, "sorry. You bring that novel you're working on?"

"Yeah," he mutters. "Just let us know if you need us, okay. If it comes to it I'm sure I can beat them over the head with that damn novel, it's like a million pages long."

"Sure," Daisy agrees, switches off comms. "Ooooh. Hey, Phil, can we get frozen cheesecake on a stick?"

"No," Coulson says. "We're on a mission."

"Come on," she wheedles, tucks her arm into his. "Look, the sign says it's  _artisan_. You're into artisan foods, right?"

"...I do like cheesecake," he admits, and okay, Daisy's willing to reconsider her stance on this being the stupidest mission ever.

 

+

 

An hour later, Daisy hates her long skirt more than anything she has ever hated, because it's making running exceptionally hard. The corset doesn't help; she can't draw a proper breath, feels like the way her chest is heaving it's something from the romance novels her one foster mom used to read. 

"Come on," she gasps. "In here. Mack, Lincoln, back-up would be really great  _any time now_." She ducks into a small tent, pulls Coulson after her, and they pause for a moment, waiting to see if they've avoided detection. It's too crowded to use her powers against someone who has definitely turned out to be a super-strength blacksmith but who also is definitely  _not_ a candidate for Secret Warriors because he has some major rage issues, and  _someone_ , whose name is Phil Coulson, told her that icers didn't work with her outfit.

"Hi," someone says pleasantly. "Y'all here to get your fortunes told?"

"...Yes," Daisy agrees. "Sure." Coulson frowns at her, and she raises her eyebrows, hoping it's sending him the right  _what??_ subtext.

"Well, I do tarot, palmistry, and tea leaves," the guy says. He looks like a biker, but his smile is warm enough, and Daisy settles into a chair in front of his stall, tugs Coulson down next to her.

"Palm reading," she says on a whim. "For both of us."

"Okay," the fortune-teller says, "cool. That'll be ten bucks. I'm Clint, by the way." Coulson sighs, pulls out his wallet and hands the guy two fives, and he smiles again, reaches out for both their right hands. "Hmmm," he murmurs, studies their palms intently for a few minutes. "Hmm," he says again, frowns, turns Coulson's hand sideways. "I, uh," he says. "This is really fucking weird. Sorry. Have you had, uh, a major illness in the last few years? Something you wound up in hospital for? Your lifeline is super janky, man."

"Yeah," Coulson says, a note of amusement in his voice. "Nearly died. Twice, actually."

"Right, okay, that makes sense. And, whoa, okay, something similar happened to you in the last year, right? I have to admit, this really isn't what I'd usually see."

"We've had some challenges," Daisy agrees, slides her left hand onto Coulson's knee and squeezes it reassuringly.

"Yeah, I can tell," Clint says. "Your heart lines are kind of janky too, actually. Look here, right, the start of both of them, see that gridwork? Oh, you were both  _flirts_ in the past, fell in and out of love easily, but here, you closed your hearts off, didn't let anyone in. But look, at least you've found each other now."

"What do you mean?" Daisy asks, startled, and Clint looks up.

"Oh, it's just- well, see there, that's your fate line. It's identical on the both of you. Fates intertwined? I don't know. But where it intersects on your heart line, I'd say that's when you met. That's when you got tangled up in each other's destiny. Your heart lines are still clear after that, still closed off, but  _here_ , here's where it gets interesting. Here's where it grids again in the same way, except the line itself, it's _strong_. Y'all get caught in a love triangle with each other or what?"

"I don't-" Coulson says, and Clint shrugs.

"Don't ask me, man, it's just destiny, okay. As far as I can see it, the two of you are tied together stronger than anything you can fight against. Tides in the universe, you know how it is. I'll do a tarot reading too, if you want."

"Hey," Mack says, poking his head into the tent. "You going to sit around all day?"

"Sorry," Daisy says to Clint, flashes him a smile. "Gotta go. But, uh, thanks."

"No worries," he says easily. "Remember, though, that intersecting heart line and fate line? That's  _special_ , okay, you don't see that every day."

"Sure," she says, flicks a glance over at Coulson. "Yeah. Thanks."

 

+

 

Mack and Lincoln have managed to quietly ice their blacksmith, contain him for transport back to the Playground. He's not Inhuman - Daisy can tell that much from his vibrations - but maybe got his hands on some Centipede serum that found its way onto the black market. They'll have to do a little more investigation.

First, she needs to get this damn corset off.

"Hey, Coulson," she says, knocking on the doorframe of his open room, and he smiles from where he's sitting in an armchair, considering the briefing file from the day. 

"Daisy, come on in. Your thoughts?"

"Not Inhuman," she says, pushing the door closed behind her. "We'll figure it out. He's still in containment, Mack's a little mad about the black eye he gave him."

"Right," Coulson says, puts down the file. "Not such a bad undercover mission, then?"

"Hmm. I'd really like to be able to breathe properly again, though."

"Oh! Right." Coulson gets up, walks over to her, pauses in front of her, and the way his eyes sweep over her, the way his vibrations spike, Daisy  _knows_ , now he's looking. He's definitely looking.

"You're still in this?" she asks, eyeing his shirt. "I'd have thought you'd take the first chance to get back into your suits. Or at least, your extremely carefully tailored shirts." Coulson shrugs.

"Didn't see the point," he says idly, and Daisy reaches out.

"It's a really ridiculous shirt," she tells him, drags her fingertips slowly down from his throat to the dip of the first button. Coulson's breath hitches a little at the touch of her fingers against his chest.

"Daisy-" he says, and she pushes the button undone.

"Did you believe it?" she asks. "About fate, and destiny, and all that?"

"It was just entertainment," Coulson says, and Daisy trails her fingers lower, presses against the next button.

"Really?" she asks, and he takes a breath, shakes his head.

"No," he says. "I mean- I don't know. It was just entertainment, but you and I, we're held together by so much, what else could it be but the universe? The serum that saved my life gave me a map to the city for your transformation. If that's not  _destiny_ , I don't know what is."

"Oh," Daisy says, soft, flicks open the button and presses her hand flat over the scar of his heart. "What about love, Phil?"

"I closed off my heart," Coulson tells her, closes his eyes against her touch. "Didn't take."

"Yeah?" she asks, leans in closer, and he brings his hands up to rest against her bare shoulders, his fingers lightly stroking against her neck.

"Yeah," he breathes, opens his eyes, and she feels like she's caught fast in the blue of his gaze. "You've been there all along."

" _Oh_ ," she says again, and the tension between them breaks; they tumble in against each other, crash their mouths together, Coulson kissing her hard and breathless and yearning. "Oh,  _fuck_ , Phil," she gets out, and he murmurs agreement, pulls her in against him, crowds her up against the wall. Her body feels armored where it's pressing against him, and he gets his hands around her waist, lifts her up until she's balanced between the wall and his hips, her legs wrapped around him.

"You never wear skirts anymore," he says against her throat, drags his teeth down along her collarbone, slides his hand up under the fabric of her skirt to cup her ass, and Daisy throws her head back and moans louder than she should.

"I'll drag out that red dress," she promises, and it makes Coulson groan into her even as he's pressing fingers against her clit through the cotton of her underwear. "I- ah,  _fuck_ , seriously, though, get me the fuck out of this corset, Phil Coulson."

The unlacing seems to take almost as long as doing it up did; Daisy wonders if Phil is going deliberately slow, dragging it out, but as it loosens, and she takes a deep breath for the first time in hours, she feels herself shiver again in anticipation of his hands on her skin, not light or professional at all.

It's even better than she anticipates. His touch sets her skin buzzing, and she unties her skirt, steps out of it, lets Phil lift her blouse up and over her head.

"Bed," she suggests, "and you need to not have clothes on, Phil, _right now_."

They tumble into his bed, still tugging at his pants, his stupid shirt, and then she's arching up underneath him, their bodies a long drag of heat and need and desire.

"Daisy," Coulson says with reverence. " _God_ , Daisy."

"Yeah," she agrees, "I know, Phil, fuck," and tilts her hips, wraps her legs around his waist, slides slick against his cock. "Come on," she says, "come  _on_ ," lets him grab her hands and push them above her head, his knuckles white with the grip.

As Coulson slides into her, he opens his mouth in a silent gasp, and his eyes are so,  _so_ blue, and their hands are tight against each other, heartline to heartline, lifeline against lifeline.

This is fate, she thinks, this is destiny, this is the universe pushing them into each other, and god, it's everything she ever wanted.


End file.
